El Zócalo and Surrounds

 First a Subway ride. I was not prepared for the chaos on the Mexico City metro. Several cars were too full to get on. I finally got smart and moved to the outskirts of the platform and was able to get on and then there was the change of metro lines. When I got on a second train, I was pushed violently into the car as people tried to get on. It was not fun, and then getting off and climbing through construction debris to get above ground was not particularly pleasant. I decided to Uber from here on even though I have hundreds of pesos left on my Subway card. 

Ar any rate I went to the Zócalo and at first glance, it was very disappointing because it was a huge piazza with a huge cathedral in the distance, but the entire Piazza was filled with construction barriers and  so that you couldn’t see what it was supposed to look like. I keep remembering the James Bond movie where James Bond is somehow flying over the Zocalo and they’re not filled with construction and barricades.

View across zocalo. There was a protest going on, an nowhere was there a view of the entire space.

I decided that it was time to get coffee to recover from the Subway ride, so walked around the Zócalo a little bit, and realized that there were tons of department stores and fabric stores. Popped in briefly for the blessed air conditioning. It’s ridiculous, the temperatures are in the low 70s, but the humidity, altitude, and pollution take their toll.

After that, I decided to go into the enormous cathedral. It did not disappoint, enormous is an understatement, and to top it off, next to it was another cathedral that was actually adhered to the main cathedral, and next to that were Aztec ruins. 

Here is the mini-Cathedral pasted alongside the enormous one.

I found that really interesting because in Merida, the cathedral was built with Mayan ruins, and I’m guessing that this cathedral was also built from Aztec ruins, since they were right next-door. Is any rate it was all very interesting. 

I love this snake motif in the ruins, right next to the cathedral.

And I also spotted a group of people dressed in Aztec dress who were blessing people with herbs and smoke.

Next was lunch at el Cardinal, a restaurant recommended by a lady I met on the Subway, who was born in Mexico City, but now lives in San Diego. She bitched about the Subway and said it was not normal.

There was a line to get in the restaurant, surprising because it is Monday and the restaurant comprises three floors of dining areas. When I arrived, I was immediately offered hot chocolate. It was 1245 P.M. and I guess still breakfast time. I said, yay and clapped my hands, and so I was given a cup of delicious chocolate. I was then presented with the breakfast menu in English. It was OK. I didn’t need to have lunch, so I ordered a glass of beet juice and a mixed plate that included tortillas, green sauce, cheese, and so on.

The meal really fortified me, so I walked around the Zocalo towards the fabric shops one more time, and eventually hailed an Uber to take me to The Mercado Sonora. 

This market was advertised as a witches market. You can actually purchase spells at this market, but it also features many spellcasting supplies as well as tarot card readers. 

It was kind of surprising that this market also had a lot of children’s toys and party supplies. In addition to many stalls filled with Mexican pottery and Mexican blown glass.

I hear that you can also buy animals for sacrifice, but I did not see that section

Hard to know what’s happening here, but it is scary!

A stack of witch’s cauldrons with a little man inside. No lo entiendo!

An assortment of spellcasting supplies…horseshoes (lucky?) spokes (vampires?) and so on…

Herbs used in spellcasting and purification?

Devils with alcohol next to our lady of Guadalupe’s and palo santo.

Wakame Harvest

 Day 1 after arrival, Kai’s nursery school has a field trip to  the beach where they are harvesting and drying seaweed — in this case, wakame, which is frequently used to make miso soup. Wakame has a season, and March is it. You could see drying operations on the beach.

The seaweed had already been gathered and the next step was to boil until the stem turned green and then rinse three times in tubs of cold water. The final step was to hang the seaweed.

The seaweed boss lady. She has beautiful strong hands!

Final seaweed rinse. It was cold out and she’s rinsing with bare hands. 

After boiling and rinsing, the children hang the seaweed to dry. That’s Kai and Naoko.

We also got to try eating the seaweed. It turns out the leaf is okay, with a mild chewy texture, but the stem is salty and the taste stayed in my mouth for many hours. 

Me hanging and splitting a piece.

Eating! Oiishi!

The Turkish Bath

 We went to one of the oldest hamam’s in Istanbul ….1475! The price of admission was hideous for a bath without massage… $50. 

At first, the ladies take you to dressing room where they give you a towel, a sarong, and a thong underpants along with rubber slippers. Then you were escorted into the actual room. 

Remember the thong? Well Jenny and Taunya thought it was a facemask of some sort and were wearing around their necks. Hilarious, don’t you think?

There, marble bowls without drains can be filled and one can wash oneself. The attendant filled up bowls, but no soap no wash towel, only water. I went into another room and found some soap and a scrubber…but it seems these were for the attendants…so she went and got us soap and washcloth. 

I made every attempt to use the water in my marble bowl to clean myself (think how hard to clean up without drain) and then went to the ‘bath’ part…a warm marble slab. We lounged for an hour or so, went back to our dressing rooms, dethroned and destined and sat down in the front lounge. There we played with kittens, and drank tea and ate pastries.

About the Hammam

Entering the hammam

The hammam cats, mother and child

Entering the hammam

Taunya practicing acupressure on kittty.

Ayvalik on the Aegean

 We took a bus about four hours north to the city. It was mentioned in our guidebook as a stopping off point to some of the ruins, and as a Turkish tourist destination. First, Turkish buses are fun, they have stewards and they serve hot drinks and packaged cookies. In case you don’t remember, buses are less smooth than airplanes so it is quite the job pouring boiling hot water into little cups and passing them out to passengers.

We arrived late, so went straight to bed and woke up to an amazing breakfast served outside right next to the Aegean.  The hotel was literally on the water, so you could look down at the fishes while eating. And the breakfast was fabulous, my favorite on the trip, kind of a Greek style breakfast with cheese, olives, vegetables, pepper spread (ayvar), fry bread, jam, and butter. We had a big pot of Turkish tea to wash it down.

Sunset view of our breakfast nook.

Me feeding cheese to an aggressive but very cute kitten.

Also, at breakfast we had the kittens, some of which would climb up onto your lap to beg for leftovers. We got quite attached to our kittens after three days.

Once we started exploring, the town surprised us. By walking straight perpendicular to the seashore we encountered a warren of ancient narrow streets many filled with shops. We spent both days exploring. There were hundreds of coffee, shops, and restaurants, to the local tourists along with shop selling olive oil and food.

We all bought a few souvenirs, prices being dramatically lower than in other places we visited.

Narrow street with Aegean view.

A house in ruin. There were several of these, made me feel at home!

Cute kitten on chair.

Ephesus, the artemision, Church of St. John

 The Temple of Artemis, sadly, is a ruinous pile of rubble. There was a feeble attempt to rebuild a column, but it looks like the workers were drinking raki as they worked.

The crooked column. Originally the temple had 127 columns. 

This is the entire very much neglected site.

This area is prone to earthquakes and religious vandalism, poor Artemis didn’t stand a chance.

Here is an image of Artemis, god of the hunt, the forest, the animals, and childbirth. Those are bull testicles.

The ruins of Ephesus were incredible, truly deserving a place in the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The site is immense, with hundreds of objects worthy of inspection. It is unclear how much restoration is happening currently, but there are acres of marble pieces waiting to be pieced together.

Sun peeking through ruin.

A tile mosaic from inside what appeared to be a wealthy Roman housing complex.

Another room from the showing complex.

A set of columns. Note the rubble all around.

This is the famous library.

The archaeological museum is also quite wondrous, showing many artifacts retrieved from the site. 

Okay if you look carefully, there’s a garden gnome in the freize.

Socrates.

This sculpture seemed out of place, unclear its background.

So St. John, we think the apostle and friend to Mary (Jesus’ mom) is buried at the site of St. John’s Basilica. It was built in the 6th century by Justinian (Ayasofia, etc.) and it is huge. I was truly shocked at the immensity of the ruins. It is said that much of it was built using rubble from the temple of Artemis.

A view of the church innards. It seems to be designed in the shape of a cross and has an atrium that resembles a cloister. 

Capitols (sp) in waiting…

A workman?

A bit of floor mosaic. The workmanship is less than what we saw at Ephesus…

There is also a castle up the hill from the Basilica, not so exciting, but probably welcome during an invasion.

Ayasofia and Other Mosques

 Throngs of tourists surround the mosque, wait in line to get tickets, wait in line to enter. We got “Byzantined” by the ticket seller who sold us an addin without explaining. Taunya called it a stupid task.

As non Muslims, we can only enter the balcony from which you can see the main floor. The ancient, gold-encased mosaics are stunning and cover hugs areas. Apparently the Muslims painted over some original Christian motifs because they depicted naked angels.

Ayasofia, side view.

Entering the mosque 

Full mosque view

Detail of angel in upper corner

Original mosaic  

Viking grafitti on the railing of balcony.

The cistern, also called The Basilica, is a big attraction. Built by Justinian, it has been featured in movies like From Russia with Love. It was designed for underground water storage.

Medusa sitting upside down in the water.

A nice view with yellow lighting.

A rare view without people. 

The cistern is a HUGE attraction judging by the long lines and high prices. Yes, it’s cool, but never again!